Business Lessons at Home

Vandana Luthra's home unveils the secret of her success.

VLCC founder Vandana Luthra's house is surprisingly built on thrift. She says as she sweeps into the room dressed in a Sabyasachi salwar-kameez, "This house is an old house. We moved into this house almost 12-13 years ago. We made a lot of mistakes with this house, like the marble flooring." Mistakes like the one pointed out by Luthra aren't evident, but then you don't build a wellness empire like the one Luthra has with VLCC without being fastidious. Continues Luthra, "I have been looking for pure white makrana for the floor."

Apart from paying great attention to detail, Luthra also has great skill at sourcing things and in the case of the pure white makrana too, Luthra hasn't failed. That isn't the only thing that Luthra has sourced. For her younger daughter's wedding, Luthra got the cotton for a duvet soaked in ittar for two months and then gifted this scented duvet to her daughter for her wedding. She says, "I have to be creative all the time."

This creative urge has seen her design almost everything in her home in Delhi herself without any help from a decorator. Therefore, a large part of the furniture has been designed by her and then made by a contractor. Says Luthra of this experiment, "There is such beautiful workmanship in India." And its not just workmanship that Luthra enjoys here but also the design aesthetic that this country has to offer. She says, "The ultimate luxury is in India. I feel that contemporary furniture gets boring and you feel like throwing it out. I like my old furniture. Recently, my dining table chairs had become old but I got them repaired. I did not want to throw them." Other pieces of furniture brought still retain their place in the house and on the day of this interview, Luthra had just the day before packed off some other pieces of furniture for repairs.

Luthra's "middle-class" attitude to money gets further reflected in the way she views the astonishing sticker price on many paintings today. Luthra's house has some of the most prominent Indian artists works on its walls "" M F Husain, Paresh Maity, Manu Parekh, Yusuf Arakkal "" brought when these artists were still affordable. Says Luthra, "Initially I would buy art whenever I had some money. I don't have the heart to pay, say, Rs 35 lakh for a painting today."

If the interiors of Luthra's home reflect her roots, the way she runs her house provides a clue about how she managed to turn a neighbourhood beauty parlour kind of business in a sector that is largely unorganised into a corporation with a clear view on where it is headed. Luthra says, "I can run this house no matter where I am in the world." Her extensive travel schedule doesn't mean that the home runs in fits and starts. Luthra, with all the precision of a skilled business manager, has built up a filing system of meals and menus complete with pictures and can tell her cook to look up a certain file and page number to order a meal while sitting anywhere in the world.

Though Luthra says that she rarely parties, her husband does enjoy entertaining at home, which she manages via this filing system even if she is unable to be in Delhi herself at the time. Says Luthra, "My younger daughter's wedding recently was organised completely by me. We did not hire a wedding planner." That did not impede the lavish celebrations in any way. The invitation card styled as a wooden shringar box itself gave away the effort that Luthra had put into making the wedding a success. This ability to be organised and delegate has meant that Luthra can be anywhere and still know exactly what is happening. She says, "I can run my company from anywhere. I like to be organised."

Ask her how she manages to find time for her home even if she is extremely well-organised and she says, "One has to take out time. I wake up early and I don't go out in the evenings too much. Also, I have this view that there is no such thing as stress. If you are overworked then you should learn to enjoy that work. And even today, the home is a woman's job. Men don't bother, they are too casual."

And there is no place for casualness in Luthra's life. At 48 years plus, Luthra is still full of that zeal to learn, to innovate, to take the industry and not her business alone ahead, this even though she says neither of her daughters are interested in the business. Says Luthra, "This does not bother me as I have never been a selfish person." Though Luthra is an ardent conversationalist and home is as much a subject that interests her as health and wellness, she has to leave to pick up an award. But even in her hurry to leave so as to not be late for the function, she provides instructions to her staff ton what needs to be done for the day. The secret of some successful people, it would seem, can be learnt by peeking into their homes.